While I was in Ireland on vacation, I was almost entirely not replying to email. In one exception, I sent Jessie and Mike a “hello from Ireland!” email. In a second, I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut, what can I say? Regardless, the three of us agree that taking real vacations (including from volunteer work) is important, and I’m so thankful that we do. Refreshed minds are the best minds.

Things that happened

In any case, here are some things that happened on the IA Summit team the last two weeks:

We had two chair meetings with ASIS&T, with us asking them lots of questions and them giving us lots of great, candid answers.

The three of us had our reunion just-us meeting (two whole weeks without a meeting, what!), with lots of great discussion and getting things done and appreciations.

We strategized and discussed the next most important people to hire,* in part by writing the job descriptions that we share with candidates.

One of the folks from UXPA Minnesota reached out after our IA Summit friend, Katie Sheehan, passed along the word that the IA Summit crowd would be hanging out in Minneapolis in 2015. Thanks, UXPA MN and Katie! We’re looking forward to gathering in your great state in April.

Rachel’s started working on her sponsorship plan, including tweeting about it. You can follow the hashtags #sponsorIAS15#IACapital for the unfolding story.

We noodled on some ideas on how to make the 2015 IA Summit community even more welcoming.

And, of course, we had the usual email chats and Google Doc strengthening!

Related: We’re maintaining a 2015 IA Summit Team Twitter list, including us chairs. It should be a fun way to follow along, if you like.

Oh yeah, one last thing. We now have over 130 people registered in the volunteer and sponsor form. This is super awesome, AND a bit overwhelming.

But, never fear, there will be opportunities for everyone to help out, at least in a small way. We’ve got some plans for small-commitment, big-impact contributions that will add to our story, so look out for those in your inbox in the coming months.

* Tony, my awesomely de facto editor, commented on my use of the word “hire” and how it might imply payment. Hire is a word that Jessie, Mike, and I have often used when discussing recruiting these folks. What I like about it is this: it implies the required commitment for each role and the thought we’re putting into who we sign up. The people who are joining our team right now are incredibly important to the success of the Summit, despite them being volunteer (not paid with money) roles. And because of that, the word “recruit” or other options just doesn’t feel as appropriate as the word “hire.”